Dr. William Carnes should be a familiar name to people around the Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) School District – he served as interim superintendent after Dr. Brian Smith left to lead the Indiana School Boards Association. He continued to serve in that post until Allen Bourff reported to work as the new permanent HSE School Superintendent.
Dr. Carnes has taken up a new interim role – Assistant Superintendent, as HSE Schools begin the search to replace Mike Beresford, now serving as the superintendent of schools for the Carmel-Clay District.
As part of his interim responsibilities, Dr Carnes will be overseeing the latest redistricting plan. With the new Southeastern Elementary set to open in August of 2019, redistricting will be required.
Carnes provided a timeline to the school board at Wednesday night’s meeting. The process starts with what he describes as “cluster groups” meeting September 10th & 11th. The process ends with school board approval of the new boundaries on December 12th.
Here are the steps in this timeline, as presented before board members by Dr. Carnes:
September 10th & 11th:
Cluster boundary committees will meet at each of the four intermediate schools. 5-8 representatives from each elementary school will gather for these sessions and will look at strategies to begin the process.
September 26th & 27th:
Five focus groups, each representing different sections of the local community, will meet. Each will review the work produced by the cluster committees
October 24th & 25th:
Each meeting begins at 6pm…October 24th at Fishers High School and October 25th at Hamilton Southeastern High School. Those attending will be assigned to a group working on possible redistricted boundary lines. For those unable to attend, an online questionnaire will be made available through 8am, November 2nd.
November 6th:
School District staff will meet to review all the input up to that point and submit a final draft recommendation to the school board.
November 20th:
The school board will convene a work session to review the work that has been done, and prepare a final redistricting recommendation.
November 28th:
Superintendent Allen Bourff will publicly present the school administration’s recommended redistricting plan to the school board.
December 12th:
The school board will vote on the redistricting plan.
Dr. Bourff said Wednesday night that board members need to communicate parameters to the cluster committees before they begin meeting September 10th